Opening-Day College Baseball Top-50 Scoreboard & Wrapup

It’s always a bonus when college baseball’s opening day is brimming with drama, upsets and rare feats – and such was the case on Friday, as most of the nation’s teams began their 2013 seasons. As is the case in most sports, many of the nation’s top teams are easing into 2013 with easier opponents … but several of those elite squads got stung by opening-day upsets.

Jordan Betts (Duke)

All but two of the top-50 teams in the CB360 Composite National Rankings (#43 Florida Atlantic and #50 Notre Dame, who both start on Sat.) were in action on Opening Day, spanning 43 games that featured six head-to-head matchups (2012 CWS team Kent State placed twice). Exactly one-third of the CB360 top-50 games that were played on Friday (14 of 42) resulted in upsets, with one rainout (Rutgers at Miami).

Austin Kubitza (Rice)

CB360 is in the process of posting a full release page for the Composite National Rankings, including a preseason projection for the 2013 NCAA Tournament field (based on the CNR … CLICK HERE for the 2012 CNR preseason release). But here’s a quick rundown of the CB360 top-50 heading into 2013 (based on formula currently consisting of eight elements: Baseball America & Perfect Game rankings combined with their 64-team NCAA projections; polls/rankings from the coaches, writers/NCBWA and Collegiate Baseball magazine; and a small projected strength-of-schedule bonus, based on figures from Boyd Nation).

All but three of Friday’s 14 upsets within the CB360 top-50 came from teams outside the top-50, with the head-to-head upsets including (21) Rice 5-1 over visiting (6) Stanford, as Austin Kubitza earned the win opposite fellow ace Mark Appel. Opening Day’s other more noteworthy upsets included:• Minnesota surging late for 6-2 win at (5) UCLA, in 10 innings …• Appalachian State launching three home runs vs. lefthanded ace Carlos Rodan in 6-3 win at (10) North Carolina State …
• Duke holding off homestanding (14) Florida, 4-3 …• Indiana winning 2-0 vs. (16) Louisville in Big East/Big Ten tournament action (Dunedin, Fla.) …
• San Diego State spoiling the first game for (20) San Diego at its beautiful new facility, Fowler Field (8-1) …• and Illinois-Chicago shutting out host (25) Texas A&M, 2-0

Virginia’s Kenny Towns had a couple big home run trots in the opening-day win at East Carolina, after smacking grand slams in both the 1st and 7th innings.

In addition to three of the games referenced above (Rice-Stanford; Ole Miss-TCU; and Va. Tech-Kent), the other three head-to-head openers between CB360 top-50 teams played out as follows: (29) Virginia 14-4 at East Carolina, on the strength of two grand slams from DH/3B (6-hole hitter) Kenny Towns … (30) UC Irvine holding off visiting (31) Baylor, 6-4 (kudos to UCI & Bears playing such a challenging opener) … and (40) Tulane edging (41) Sam Houston State, 2-0, in tournament action at Texas State.

Race Parmenter (UC Irvine)

On the same day that Chris Pollard began his tenure as Duke head coach with the upset at Florida, the team he previously coached (Appalachian State) was fashioning its own upset of a top-15 team, at NC State.

The 2012 College World Series teams combined to go only 4-4 on the 2013 Opening Day, with Kent State suffering the two upset losses while UCLA and Florida also were surprised at the start of 2013 (Arkansas, South Carolina, Florida State and Arizona all won, while Stony Brook was rained out).

Tomas Michelson (Illinois-Chicago)

Full Opening-Day results for the CB360 top-50 are included below, with an assortment of postgame links – final stats (HTML & PDF), recaps from both teams, photo galleries, video highlights, and postgame video/audio).

For easy reference, here are groupings of Opening Day photos and video (highlights & postgame), plus some postgame audio, from throughout the CB360 top-50: